Hyderabad: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Chandrababu Naidu’s wife Nara Bhuvaneswari is embarking on a state-wide tour of Andhra Pradesh from Wednesday, in an effort to shore up sympathy for her jailed husband and to invigorate party workers in the run-up to the assembly polls next year.
In her tour, which has been named Nijam Gelavali (truth should triumph), Bhuvaneswari will speak to the public about Naidu’s “illegal arrest” and Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy’s “vendetta politics”, TDP sources told ThePrint.
Former Andhra Pradesh CM Naidu has been imprisoned at Rajahmundry central jail since 10 September after he was arrested in connection with the alleged Skill Development Corporation scam.
During her tour, Bhuvaneswari will also visit the families of people — TDP supporters and Naidu admirers — who allegedly died of shock or pain following the former CM’s arrest.
TDP leaders claim there are at least 150 such cases or families across the state, who will be consoled by Bhuvaneswari.
YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) chief Jagan had embarked on a similar state tour, famously known as Odarpu Yatra, after his father Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s death in a helicopter crash in September 2009. The tour helped Jagan, then a Congress MP, to connect with the masses and successfully claim his father’s legacy.
Greeting people on the occasion of Dussehra, Naidu issued an open letter to the public, which he reportedly handed over to his family during a jail mulaaqat (meeting) Sunday. In it, he wrote that his wife Bhuvaneswari, on his request, “will engage with the people through the Nijam Gelavali campaign, offering solace to the families affected by his wrongful arrest and to bring an end to the current chaotic governance”.
In the letter, which was released to the media, the opposition leader also wrote that he is “not in jail but in the hearts of the people of AP”.
Bhuvaneswari’s tour, TDP sources said, will begin from Naravaripalle, Naidu’s native village near Tirupati, with prayers at a local temple. The first family Bhuvaneswari will offer solace to will be in the nearby Pakala village.
The vehicle-borne yatra has no fixed schedule yet, the sources added.
Bhuvaneswari Tuesday offered prayers at the famous Venkateswara temple in Tirumala.
YSRCP leaders have derided the tour, saying it would not last long “like (Naidu’s son and TDP general secretary) Nara Lokesh’s Yuva Galam Padayatra and other rallies and demonstrations initiated by the TDP”.
“We also want the truth to win and Bhuvaneswari should first know the facts. The yatra should begin after an oath is taken at Kanipakam Vinayaka temple (that her husband is innocent) and everything (in the skill development project and other matters when Naidu was CM) was done honestly,” YSRCP MLC Talasila Raghuram told a news outlet Monday.
He also asked the state government and prison authorities to probe how Naidu’s letter came out from jail allegedly without official approval.
Bhuvaneswari and Naidu’s daughter-in-law Brahmani (Lokesh’s wife) have been in public view since the TDP chief’s arrest, making political comments and attacks on Jagan’s regime, and inviting sharp reactions from YSRCP leaders like minister R.K. Roja.
Unlike her sister Daggubati Purandeswari, a former Union minister and the current chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Andhra unit, Bhuvaneswari until her husband’s arrest had confined herself to managing the family business, Heritage Foods, along with Brahmani.
Both Purandeswari and Bhuvaneswari are daughters of the late matinee idol, TDP founder and former Andhra CM N.T. Rama Rao.
Also Read: The ‘Rs 3,300-cr govt deal & skill development project’ behind Andhra ex-CM Chandrababu’s arrest
TDP & Jana Sena Party hold meeting
With Naidu yet to be released, the TDP is now getting into poll preparations with his son Lokesh at the helm.
On Monday, ahead of Vijayadashami, the TDP and the Jana Sena Party (JSP) held their first coordination meeting at Rajahmundry.
Days after Naidu’s arrest, JSP chief Pawan Kalyan had announced — from the town where Naidu is jailed — that the two parties would fight together to topple Jagan from the CM’s seat in the 2024 polls.
Reiterating that he would not allow the anti-incumbency vote to be divided, Kalyan said that the two parties were formulating a joint strategy and an action plan.
“The Jana Sena-TDP combine is the vaccine to eliminate the YSRCP virus which is plaguing the state,” Kalyan, flanked by Lokesh, told reporters after the meeting.
Neither of the two leaders commented on the seat-sharing formula.
Lokesh said that there would be no conflict between the two parties and expressed confidence that the TDP-Jana Sena combine would form the next government in the state.
A common manifesto will be declared on 1 November, Lokesh said, adding that TDP and JSP leaders would later go for door-to-door campaigning too.
Monday’s joint meeting passed three resolutions, one “strongly condemning the illegal arrest of Chandrababu Naidu”, the second endorsing the TDP-JSP alliance and a third committing to the well-being of Andhra’s people.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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